1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an infant seat rocker and, more particularly, to a mechanized seat rocker that may safely secure an infant seat while inducing and maintaining a gentle rocking motion in the seat.
2. Background Art
There have been a number of devices that have been developed to rock or sway an infant or baby so that the soothing motion may settle or even help the infant or baby to fall sleep. Most notably, rocking cribs have been used for many numbers of years to soothingly rock infants. Cribs are generally sized to allow the infant to stretch out and provide the infant a full range of motion while sleeping. They are large and often are difficult to move. Although cribs can be rocked easily and aid greatly in soothing a baby and helping the baby to fall asleep, because of its size, a crib may be very difficult to travel with each time the family leaves the home for any extended period and, therefore, may be infeasible for the family to rely on a crib for rocking the baby outside the home.
The rocking motion of rocking chairs has also been used as a means of soothing an infant. The gentle rocking motion of a chair while a baby rests in its mother's arms has been used to soothe and help the baby to sleep for many years. As with cribs, rocking chairs are often large and difficult to move easily. Rocking chairs may also be hard to travel with and often times a rocking chair may not be available when a baby becomes agitated. Often a rocking chair may be too large and without enclosures for safely securing a baby while the chair is in a rocking motion. Adults or other responsible individual are needed to safely hold an infant while seated in a rocking chair, thus taking time away from the adult or other individual that could be spent elsewhere.
Swings have been developed to comfortably secure an infant while swinging or rocking the infant. These swings may be rocked manually by a capable individual or theses swings may also be fashioned with a motor or mechanized winding system such that the swing may operate automatically for a period of time. While these swings work well at home, they too are often large pieces and may be difficult and cumbersome to travel with and troublesome to take on short trips to a store or restaurant.
With the advent of infant/child automobile safety seat laws, a number of infant seats have been developed to protect the infant in a vehicle. A number of advances have been made since the first infant seats for vehicles were introduced some years ago. For example, many infant seats have been developed that may have an outer shell with common locating and attaching points so that the seat may be adapted for many different uses. The same seat may be used to secure an infant in a vehicle to a base, used to carry an infant, used to secure an infant in a stroller, or used to place an infant in a swing. Often these infant seats will have a rounded bottom for fitting into a base or stroller to facilitate ease of insertion and removal of the infant seat.
Still another use for the infant seat is to use this same rounded bottom feature for manually rocking the infant in the seat. Often, the mother or other responsible individual may rock the seat manually by placing the seat on the floor and using their hand or foot to rock the seat. While manual rocking of the seat may be helpful in soothing the infant when a crib, chair or swing is not available, the individual may tire or may not be able to maintain a constant rhythmic motion of the seat which may interrupt the soothing aspects of rocking and ultimately disturb the infant.
Therefore, a need exists for an infant seat rocker that is cable of accepting any number of infant seat designs and that can mechanically and consistently rock the seat when the infant is secured in the infant seat. Furthermore, there is also a need for an infant seat rocker that is compact in size, easy to travel with and may be easily set up such that the infant may seamlessly move to a consistent and soothing rocking motion relatively quickly, while providing a level of safety for the seat and the infant.